Weekly Progressive Calendar: Upcoming in San Diego

By Doug Porter

Despite an average of 5700 new city voters registering weekly during the first quarter of 2016, and a predicted surge in June primary ballots being cast in San Diego, the Union-Tribune’s experts say the local establishment has nothing to fear.

They point to incumbent Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s 10 to 1 advantage in fundraising, a massive TV advertising campaign, and new voters not bothering to look past the Presidential contests.

With Sanders supporters on a local Facebook group sharing a video made by Ted Nugent of Bernie shooting Hillary Clinton, organizing a postcard campaign to tell the world they won’t vote if their candidate doesn’t prevail, and reposting articles from Glenn Beck’s media outlet, it’s not hard to understand why the local plutocracy is sanguine. Of course, they could prove the experts wrong. I hope.

From the UT article:

A recent flood of left-leaning voter registration and Donald Trump clinching the Republican presidential nomination last week could make it harder for Mayor Kevin Faulconer to get enough votes on June 7 to avoid a November runoff.

Two local political analysts, however, said those factors and several others working against Faulconer are probably not enough to deny the Republican incumbent the simple majority he needs next month to win re-election.

They said many newly registered voters might cast ballots only for president and skip local races, and that Faulconer’s opponents – Democrat Ed Harris and independent Lori Saldaña – don’t have enough money to fully capitalize on Bernie Sanders fever boosting Democratic turnout.

You can confirm your voter registration here and register to vote (or re-register, if you’ve moved) here. Click here to sign up to vote by mail.

Next week the San Diego Free Press will publish the Progressive Voter Guide, which will include endorsements. In the meantime, you can view all our articles on the upcoming primary by clicking here.

Now, to this week’s batch of upcoming events…

San Diego Candidate Forum

ICSD, CAIR, MAS PACE, and The League of Women Voters invite you to meet the candidates that are running for the upcoming Mayoral race. There will also be other individuals that will be running for office present at the event

The 24th annual Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger® Food Drive is the nation’s largest one-day, providing letter carriers, other postal employees and thousands of volunteers across the nation the opportunity to meld their forces together to conduct the drive in their local communities.

Last year’s drive collected approximately 71 million pounds of non-perishable food that was left in bags next to postal customers’ mailboxes. It was the 12th consecutive year that letter carriers have collected more than 70 million pounds of food, and it brought the drive’s grand total to more than 1.4 billion pounds of food collected.

The drive is held each year on the second Saturday in May, and so Saturday, May 14, has for months been circled on the calendars of hunger-relief advocates who have watched as food supplies collected during winter holiday drives dwindle day by day. The drive also comes just before many school systems end their academic years, and that often can mean a suspension in subsidized meals for many students.

OB Tenants United Meeting

The rent in OB is steadily increasing. Landlords keep forcing rent hikes year after year. One landlord in particular, Michael Mills, (previously jailed for being a slumlord) is going out of his way to raise rent and make life harder on tenants. Enough is enough! Let’s come together to discuss and organize against high rents and bad living conditions. OB should be accessible to everyone, not just rich people!! This issue affects all of San Diego, so please feel free to join us regardless of where you live.

Please note that the 5/14 meeting is to build an OB Rent Control rally on Sat 6/4 at the flagpole, and that there will be more meetings and events around SD in the months to come. To get involved or find out more, please check out SD Tenants United:https://www.facebook.com/SDTenantsUnited/

Rise Up for Bernie – Unity March and Rally – #RiseUpMay14

We march and rally in support of the Bernie Sanders #NotMeUs movement. Bernie has stood up for the kind of leadership that we want and need to create in this country. It’s our turn to take a stand!

Meet us in Balboa Park(@6th and Juniper) at noon and march with us to beautiful Embarcadero Park South (behind the SD Convention Center) for a Rally at 3pm. We will hold the largest voter registration verification and registration event in California AND hear from inspiring speakers to include:

Al Nakba Commemoration

Saturday, May 14, 5pmBalboa Park Recital HallPan American Road, WestCo-Sponsored by Council on American-Islamic RelationsTickets $10 General Public / $5 Student

Multi-media event Commemorating 68 years of Al Nakba: A Story of Ethnic Cleansing, Resilience, and Resurgence featuring Dr. Jamal Nassar, music by Naima Shalhoub, personal story of survivors, photos, screening of the short film “Ismail,” inspired by the Palestinian painter Ismail Shammout,and Palestinian dinner.

Learn firsthand about what happened to the Palestinians when Israel was founded from people who lived through the experience. Help commemorate 68 years of Al Nakba (the Catastrophe), which is what Palestinians call Israel’s Independence Day.

League of Women Voters/KNSJ RadioCity Attorney Candidate Forum

Join The League of Women Voters and KNSJ 89.1 FM for a public debate between candidates running for the San Diego City Attorney.All qualified candidates will be in attendance. SD Free Press Editor Anna Daniels will be among the moderators, so count on a no bullshit evening.

Airing LIVE at KNSJ.org and 89.1 FM. Dinner Served 6 PM sharp before the debate.

Note: Small donation to support KNSJ 89.1 FM Community Radio is requested for dinner.

Walk District 9 With Sarah Saez

Sunday, May 15, NoonSarah Saez for District 9 City Council4265 Fairmount AveInfo & UpdatesHosted by San Diego Progressive Democratic Club

Mail ballots are already out and voters head to the polls in less than a month.

If you want real change at City Hall come help our endorsed candidate for District 9 get there! District 9 is a majority diverse and working class district where Sarah has been reaching out to all voters, high and low propensity and even registering new ones in neighborhoods where turnout has been low but the needs are the greatest. That’s why her platform to make San Diego Affordable, Safe and Green advocates for policy reforms that will make a real difference in people’s lives.

But she needs people power to get past the finish line. This race is going to be won on the ground, in our neighborhoods and we need your help to bring friends and family to knock on doors with us and talk to voters.

Join the Progressive Democratic Club to walk the vote in District 9 for Sarah Saez! We will also be joined by folks from UCSD Tritons for Bernie!! The political revolution is here!

Marshall Project’s Bill Keller Speaks at UCSD

From the streets of Ferguson to the presidential campaign trail, the troubles of our criminal justice system have been thrust onto the national agenda as never before. Come hear former New York Times Editor Bill Keller in conversation with Matt Hall, Editorial and Opinion Director of the San Diego Union-Tribune, as they look into the future of criminal justice reporting and the role of news media at this critical juncture. Keller, now the editor of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that focuses exclusively on the American criminal justice system, offers a unique insight into where journalism has been and where it is going as it chronicles this most pressing of social issues amid the backdrop of a hotly contested presidential election.

The Truth About Homelessness in San Diego

Monday, May 16, 7pmPartnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA)4089 Fairmount AvenueCo-Hosted by Democratic Woman’s Club of San DiegoInfo & Updates

The reality is even worse than you think but humane solutions are possible.

Outspoken advocate for our homeless neighbors, Jeeni Criscenzo will present a unique perspective on homelessness and propose short and long term measures we must begin taking.

She will demonstrate why the recently released numbers from the annual HUD Point in Time Count of homeless people are seriously flawed and completely miss thousands of homeless women, children and families.

She will explain why HUD’s shortsighted definition of homelessness further shortchanges this population.

The good news is that there are funds that the City can use to get our most vulnerable residents housed. We just need the political will to redirect these funds.

Over the last decade, police brutality in communities of color has become an overlooked epidemic. Whether the law enforcement agency is the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency or the local police force, black and brown communities must unite to combat abuse.

Please join us in a panel discussion on police brutality in communities of color. Let’s work together to end law enforcement impunity.

Politics of Choice in San Diego,
Why Planned Parenthood Matters

Nora Vargas, the VP of Community and Government Relations department of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of the Pacific Southwest will be speaking about the politics of choice in San Diego County, why Planned Parenthood matters, and she will share electoral plans for this election cycle.

La Raza Lawyers Association City Attorney Debate

Join SDLRLA and our partner community organizations for our 2016 City Attorney Forum on May 24th at USD’s University Forums Halls at 6:30 PM. The debate will be moderated by NBC-7’s anchor Catherine Garcia and will focus on a range of issues affecting the Latino community and communities of color throughout the city of San Diego.

Many San Diego residents are not fully aware of how the City Attorney’s decisions directly affect their daily lives. This forum seeks to illuminate the City Attorney’s impact on residents’ lives and their communities by elucidating the important role played by the City Attorney. In doing so, we hope to empower voters so they are better equipped to make an informed decision this June at the ballot box. We hope you will join us!

Get your event listed: I try to list the next 10 days or so of mostly non-commercial events I think our readers might find of interest. I source my material from social media listings and press releases. In cases where there are competing but similar events or campaigns of the progressive persuasion, I do my best to list everything.

Unfortunately, my subscription to the psychic hotline has lapsed so if you don’t tell me or Facebook, etc., about your event it won’t get listed. See my email address at the end of this column.

On This Day: 1913 – Some 10,000 IWW dock workers struck in Philadelphia. 1955 – Elvis Presley’s performance at Jacksonville, FL, became the first Presley show at which a riot ensued. 1985 – A confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group MOVE ended as police dropped an explosive onto the group’s headquarters. Eleven people died in the fire that resulted.

I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to… Catch “the Starting Line” Monday thru Friday right here at San Diego Free Press (dot) org. Send your hate mail and ideas to DougPorter@SanDiegoFreePress.Org Check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.